Breaking Vlad
Trump & Co. facing up to Russian malevolence
WERE you afraid Russia’s Vladimir Putin had elected a Manchurian Candidate to the US presidency who’d do Kremlin’s bidding? Fear no more.
Until last week, President Trump’s entire time in office was dogged by allegations of colluding with Moscow to beat his Democratic rival. The FBI and various congressional committees are still investigating those, as they should.
But if Putin hoped his interference in our democracy would buy him a White House puppet, he made a bad bet. Just watch all the events surrounding Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s frosty landing Tuesday in Moscow.
On leaving Italy, where he consulted with colleagues from America’s top six allies, Tillerson told reporters that Russia had failed first to rid Syria of chemical agents and then to stop its Syrian ally from using them. Either the Russians were complicit in the April 4 sarin attack in Idlib, or they were taken for fools, he said.
“The reign of the Assad family is coming to an end,” Tillerson added, changing his tune from just last week, when he said the future of President Bashar al-Assad will be decided by the Syrian people.
Now, Tillerson said, Russia needs to choose: Side with America and our allies, or back the Syrian butcher and his unsavory partners, Iran and Hezbollah.
Putin’s answer came quickly. As he has since Day One of the six-year Syrian war, the Kremlin strongman sided with Assad tooth and nail.
The Idlib sarin attack was a false-flag operation meant to drag America in, Putin insisted. Worse, he added, “We have in- formation that a similar provocation is being prepared,” this time in the suburbs of Damascus. Putin declined to schedule the expected meeting with the visiting American Secretary of State. Yet he spoke alongside another guest, Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
Hours earlier, the Italians, the hosts of the G7 meeting, were perhaps hoping for good atmospherics in Moscow when they nixed a British suggestion to slap new sanctions on Russia.
Not so, our president. Just as Tillerson’s plane landed in Moscow, Trump ratified Montenegro’s admittance into NATO. And, voila, a Balkan country once in Russia’s realm of influence will be a member in the alliance Moscow most hates and fears.
To add insult to injury, as columnist Eli Lake first reported Tuesday, the White House released an intelligence dossier that refuted Russia’s claims on the Idlib gas attack. According to the four-page document, the Kremlin’s attempts to exonerate Assad from responsibility for killing nearly 100 with chemical weapons amount to, well, fake news.
In other words, the first highlevel meeting between America and Russia since Trump took office is tenser than at any time during the presidencies of his two predecessors.
(To add to the dumpster-fire atmosphere, as Tillerson landed on Russian soil Tuesday, flames engulfed a trash site right by Moscow’a Vnukovo airport.)
So yes, Putin will continue to spread fake news in America and around the world. His interference last year clearly favored the Republican presidential candidate.
Investigations into all that continue.
But have you noticed? These probes no longer dominate news cycles, as they had so many days since Jan. 20.
The depth of Putin’s penetration of our democracy is important. But more crucial now is whether America’s most powerful official reciprocates and does Russia’s bidding, rather than promote America’s interests.
Trump or no Trump, Putin continues to see America as his top adversary. In Syria he’s successfully diminished America’s influence in the region and the world. Will Trump continue the policies that allowed it, just to satisfy his supposed puppet master?
As of this week, Trump’s answer is a resounding nyet.